Reading for Inspiration!

Sometimes all it takes is a good book to get you to look at things from a new perspective. The principal that I am doing my student teaching under suggested that I read this book and I am glad he did. This book was very uplifting, as well as, eye opening. It made me think of situations from a child's point of view and made me realize that there is a whole lot going on with some children and not every child can be just worried about school. Sad. Also, as a future teacher, I read a lot about opportunities that I can take in the classroom setting that will help those children strive for excellence and persevere through those tough times and come out on top, like a champ. I would recommend this book to any educator out there and also, I think this is a book that needs to be read every 2-3 years to just put things back into perspective for you, perhaps when things get tough and you start to get discouraged.

Poverty does not effect all students, but it does effect some students. The students that it effects need you. They need that rock in their life that is going to love them and push them to their limits and help them to realize that they can love themselves and push through the obstacles they face.

This is an easy read and I hope you enjoy it just as much as I did :)

My Teacher Graduation Cap

Oh, I could not be more happy to share with you my graduation cap. I was SO excited and eager to decorate it. The top of my hat, pictured above, was all thanks to the wonderful Hobby Lobby. I found everything I needed there. The apple that you see is wooden and only costs $.99! The pearls that make my name come individual and I glued them on with super glue! TIME CONSUMING, but well worth it. The other items on my hat are just stickers that I also superglued. The glitter background is a piece of scrapbook paper.

I just had to have my hat monogrammed!! I was really impressed that it came out so well. It took about 5 minutes once I decided which colors and font I wanted to use. I did not choose school colors for my monogram, I just chose my favorite color, orange!!

Adjectives that Describe Me

Here are a couple of finished products of what we did on adjectives yesterday!! They all turned out so wonderfully. The student's loved writing about themselves and they really enjoyed doing this activity. 

This is a really short post just to show what the final product looked like!! :)

 To make the small white strips of paper, I just cut index cards into fourths.

#awesomeadjectives

Spring break is well underway and I must say the break has been quite nice, but as most teachers, our brains never turn off and I am so excited to get back in the classroom to teach the kiddos all about awesome adjectives. I haven't stopped thinking about how much FUN we are going to have learning about adjectives. I plan to read them the book, If I were an Adjective, and follow up by doing a really fun and meaningful brainstorming activity after we read the book. 

I am going to place 4 objects on their group tables, one on each table. I will also place sticky notes for the children at their group. Each child will get one sticky note and together as a table they must come up with, in this case, six different adjectives to describe the items at their table. They will stick their sticky note on the item once they are finished. This will give me an indicator to who is finished and who might be struggling to complete the task. The four items I chose to use are:

                                             A colorful shag rug
                                                    A candle
                                               A stuffed animal
                                                  A beach ball

Once all the children are finished brainstorming and writing down their adjectives we are going to have a classroom discussion about the adjectives they have come up with. After we are finished with that activity, they are going to come up with adjectives to describe themselves and make a poster about themselves using different adjectives. On the back of their poster they are going to write about themselves using the adjectives they chose to describe themselves. This really gets 2nd graders motivated because they are talking about themselves :)

Here is my example I made for what the students will be creating and on the back they they will have a writing that incorporates all of the adjectives they used on the front of their poster. 

Stay tuned and I will post some of the kiddos work for you to see how it turned out for us.